What Folk.Share is, and what it is not.

1. What Folk.Share does

Folk.Share is a community noticeboard for Salt Spring Island. It helps members find each other: to lend and borrow things, to offer and ask for skills, to share a crossing, and to fill a project. It is run by a person, not a company, and it is free.

Folk.Share is not the lender, the renter, the rental company, the employer, the payment processor, the insurer, or anybody's agent. It does not check qualifications, licences or backgrounds. Every arrangement made through it is between the members who make it.

2. Who can join

• You must be 18 or older. Pending: the age of majority in British Columbia is 19; whether the threshold stays at 18 is a decision for legal review.
• You confirm your email address, give your real name, a photograph of yourself and roughly where you are.
• You live on Salt Spring, or work here regularly, or have a connection to the island you can describe. Pending: whether seasonal residents and regular volunteers are named here, as the earlier brief intended.
• One account per person. An organisation joins with one named manager.

3. Your arrangements are yours

You choose whom to deal with. You agree your own prices, deposits, cancellation terms, what happens if something is damaged, when and where things are returned, and what a piece of work covers. Folk.Share gives you a place to write that down in your own words so you both have the same record. It does not write it for you, it does not sign it, and it does not enforce it.

Payments and deposits are between you, in cash or by e-transfer. Folk.Share does not hold, move or guarantee money. An amount written in an arrangement is your record of what you agreed, not a Folk.Share invoice or receipt.

Folk.Share does not guarantee that an item is as described or will come back, that a payment will be made, that a piece of work will turn out well, that a member is qualified, or that anybody is trustworthy or suitable. Ask the questions that matter to you before you agree.

4. What you agree to do

Be honest, be respectful and follow through on what you agree to. Describe items and services accurately. Take care of things you borrow. Say clearly what you expect about timing and payment. Speak up when something goes wrong. The full list is the community guidelines, which are part of these terms.

5. What is not allowed

• Illegal items or services; weapons or explosives; controlled drugs; alcohol listings
• Stolen or counterfeit goods; fraudulent listings; scams; deliberately misleading claims
• Sexual services
• Threats, harassment or discrimination
• Regulated services offered unlawfully or without the qualifications the law requires
• Anything that creates a serious risk to safety, whether or not it is named above

Some things people offer here need care: childcare, pet care, trades, help with vehicles. Folk.Share does not verify anybody's qualifications, licences or history. A profile that has been read and approved has been approved to take part, not certified as competent at anything. Misrepresenting qualifications is a reason for removal.

6. Reports, moderation and help

You can report a problem privately from any listing, profile, conversation or arrangement. A report is your account of what happened; what the administrator finds, decides and does is recorded separately, and a report on its own is not a finding against anybody. Outcomes range from no action to a note, a request for more information, an offer of informal mediation, a warning, a temporary suspension or removal. Where there is an immediate risk to safety the administrator can act at once and records why.

Informal mediation is voluntary. It helps two people talk; it is not arbitration, it decides nothing about who owes what, and it promises no outcome.

7. Leaving

You can ask to delete your account from your settings. The request cannot finish while you have an item out, or a return or handover nobody has confirmed, or while a report that touches your account is being looked at. When it goes through, your public profile and listings are removed promptly. A limited internal record may be kept for a while afterwards; the privacy policy says what and for roughly how long.

8. Changes to these terms

The version you agreed to, and when, is recorded on your account. If these terms change in a way that matters you are told, and asked to agree again where that is needed.

9. Responsibility

To be written with counsel. Folk.Share provides the noticeboard as it is. The wording of any limits on Folk.Share's liability, and of what cannot be limited under the law of British Columbia, is for the lawyer, and nothing in this draft claims that these notices remove responsibility Folk.Share actually has.